The 4TH edition of the summer school for female leadership in the digital age took place in Valencia, from 25 – 30 June 2023. It was organised by Huawei Europe with the aim to empower young female leaders to thrive Europe in a more inclusive and sustainable digital and green future.
29 European female students from the EU Member States, Western Balkans and Ukraine were selected and received a scholarship to take part in this unforgettable experience. A week full of learning, sharing, networking and building friendships for life. The programme addressed a wide range of topics such as leadership, cyber security, coding, sustainability and green skills, mental health in a digital age and much more. Many distinguished guests from the private sector, civil society and European institutions participated in panels, workshops and masterclasses.
This initiative can be identified a good practice on how to private sector can play a role in training young females in leadership skills and preparing them for the digital world. An alumni network is build following the different summer schools. It is a growing community of talented girls across Europe with the aim help to strengthen their confidence and to become the next future leaders.
As a member of the Skills for Enterprise Team in ETF, I participated as a coach to support the girls with the group work as described below.
Group work
The group work was put in the context of the European Year of Skills. The group work that was organised every morning, for 1.5 hours as of day 2 of the programme. The majority of the girls that attended the summer school have a STEM background. Therefore, the angle of looking deeper at skills development as an important driver for change and economic growth was new to them.
The five teams were supported by two coaches: Nuno Machado Lopes that ensured the process and ensuring the divergence and convergence moments to come to the end result, and myself, Kristien Van den Eynde from ETF for supporting with the content of the policy briefs and presentations.
Challenges
Five policy briefs were drafted by the girls, in response to the following challenges that were addressed by members of the jury and ETF:
- How can we ensure that AI does not increase and amplify discrimination through algorithms in education and training and labour market? Shada Islam, Belgium – Member of the Jury
- What kind of up-skilling and re-skilling approaches would be ideal in terms of access (provision of training, relevance (content of training) and innovation (modern learning methods etc) to ensure your skills will correspond to the changing needs of working environment and labour market?
- What needs to be done to prepare the workforce for the future demands of green industries and technologies? What kind of training and education programs are needed to build a workforce with green skills?
- What kind of actions are needed to improve the soft skills through lifelong learning?
- How can we make agriculture education sexy again in the EU?
The policy briefs
Here are some abstracts of the policy briefs that were drafted by the girls. The last day of the summer school, each group presented the policy brief before an external jury.
1) Prevention of Discrimination by Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment
The brown group addressed the first challenge by looking into the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recruitment processes.
The use of AI in recruitment processes such as CV screening, targeted advertisement of positions and analysis of video interviews has become increasingly popular as a means of increasing efficiency. However, the use of AI in recruitment risks reinforcing historical discrimination against marginalised groups and measures must be adopted to mitigate such risks.
These are the key challenges that they identified:
- Concerned by the fact that AI recruitment tools are mainly trained with biased datasets,
- Aware that AI recruitment tools are developed predominantly by men,
- Acknowledging that recruiters often lack understanding of AI biases,
- Noting that currently proposed AI regulation is not agile enough to keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancements,
- Taking into account that broad regulations are often difficult to implement for companies, particularly SMEs,
Here are some recommendations proposed by the team:
1. Develop a standard method for assessing data quality; 2. Make non-discriminatory datasets in algorithmic training processes a legal requirement; 3. Promote diversity among AI creators; 4 Develop AI training courses for recruiters;
2) Future-proofing the workforce: a lifelong learning policy for up-skilling and re-skilling
The girls from the blue team tackled the issue of up-skilling and re-skilling of the workforce.
The World Economic Forum predicted that by 2025, half of the global employees would require re-skilling due to automation and technological advancements. This estimate excludes those currently unemployed. Experts projected that most children starting primary school would work in job types that don't exist yet. The STEM program aims to develop innovative curricula and education programs to foster the skills and mindset necessary for a digital, green, entrepreneurial era.
They recommend the proposed learning intervention to focus on the development of digital skills, green skills and entrepreneurial skills, which are crucial in the digital and green transitions the world is currently going through.
3) Greening the Workforce
The green group identified skills gaps and practical education as one of the main challenges to be tackled to prepare the workforce for green industries and technologies.
Skills Gap & Education:
The traditional educational system has been slow-moving to adjust to the shifting demands of the green industries. Sustainability and green practices have not been
sufficiently incorporated into many educational programs and curricula, and graduating students consequently frequently lack the specialised knowledge and abilities necessary for employment in fields including renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable design, and environmental management. The skills gap is a result of out-of-date curricula and a lack of specialised and tailored training.
Additionally, there is a lack of hands-on training and real-world application in preparing youngsters and their workforce for the future demands of green industries and technologies. Young people might possess academic knowledge but lack the necessary practical skills to put sustainable practices into effect or engage with green technologies.
4) Unlocking Competitive Advantage: Fostering Soft Skills in European Technology Companies
The future leaders of the pink team focused on the importance of soft skills for employees from technological small and medium sized companies.
Why?
Employee well-being: If employees do not feel a part of a team or a community, they are more likely to leave SMEs and work for larger technological companies. According to McKinsey & Company, larger companies often provide more comprehensive training and development programs, including soft skill-building workshops. These opportunities can enhance employees' soft skill sets and make them more marketable in the long term, however, innovative ideas might be lost at these larger companies due to complex corporate structures
Boosting innovation-driven economic growth: Diversity in innovation, as a result of a large number of smaller technology companies working on different ideas, creates an economic benefit. For employees of larger companies, any new ideas they might have that they wish to develop need to be pushed through a strict hierarchy. However, employees of smaller companies often have less bureaucracy to deal with. If smaller companies do not possess the necessary soft skills required to retain hard-skilled and innovative talent, this diversity in innovation will be lost to multinational corporations. Supporting SMEs by safeguarding their human capital allows reinforcement of SDGs focused on promoting and sustaining inclusive economic growth, specifically targeting the mitigation of labour market challenges.
5) Ensuring food security by making agricultural education sexy again.
This was the winning team! The purple team choose the challenge about investing again in agricultural education.
Why?
There is no food without farmers. Moreover, there is no food security without equality, sustainability and innovation in the agricultural field. In the past 20 years, the volume of agricultural work in Europe fell by a third, while the population grew by more than 10 million. To ensure we can sustain our nutritional needs as well as the needs of future generations, we must make agriculture education sexier. This is a necessity to attract more people into this vital sector, both farmers and other experts, including scientists, economists and engineers. To do this, we recommend the European Commission to issue a series of recommendations to their member states targeting secondary, vocational and higher education, proposing introducing awareness on opportunities, innovation and the various professions involved with agriculture.
They also tackled the issue of gender inequality in the agriculture sector.
One notable aspect of the modern agriculture is that women do not have to rely on physical labour, thanks to the technological advancements such the use of GPS, sensors, drones etc . This shift opens up opportunities for women, who might experience more difficulties with the physical demands. Governments and agricultural institutions must adopt gender-sensitive policies that promote women's inclusion, such as recognising and securing women's land rights, providing credit and financial services, and facilitating access to modern agricultural technologies.
See complete policy briefs attached.
For more information on the summer school: Female Leadership | European Leadership Academy
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